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The Rockbridge County High School wrestling team went 3-2 in duals last week, competing against Valley District rivals last Wednesday at East Rockingham before facing tough competition in a nondistrict quad meet on Saturday at Riverheads.
The Wildcats are 9-3 in duals this season.
At East Rockingham, the Wildcats beat Broadway and lost Turner Ashby. Scores were not provided.
RC head coach Mike Wood said TA is “probably second best to Heritage in our region right now.” Heritage won the Region 3C tournament last year, with TA placing second and RC finishing sixth. The Wildcats won the Valley District tournament by half-a-point over Broadway last year, with TA placing third.
Wood said that, even if the Wildcats had wrestled better, TA “still would’ve beaten us, but we gave a few matches away. We’re still shooting ourselves in the foot.”
At Riverheads on Saturday, RC, a larger Class 3 school, beat Riverheads 43-33. Wood said Riverheads is probably the third or fourth-best team in Class 1.
The Wildcats then faced Central (Woodstock) and won 54-23.
In their final dual, the Wildcats lost to Cosby 52-21. Wood noted that Cosby is a larger school that is ranked in the top five in Class 5 and ranked 15th overall in Virginia. “We wrestled them very tough,” said Wood. “Not that we could’ve won the match, but it could’ve been a lot closer.”
Two RC wrestlers, Markus Nelson at 150-pounds and Sawyer Hattersley at 175, went 3-0. “Both of those guys kind of go hand in hand,” said Wood. “They’ve both shown really big improvement. It’s finally clicking.”
Today, Wednesday, the Wildcats are scheduled to compete in Valley District duals at Broadway, starting at 6 p.m. On Saturday, they’ll travel to Strasburg for a quad meet at 11 a.m.
